First, cricket: England are World Champions! This is the first time we've ever won the men's World Cup (the women's team are the current holders) and it was an absolutely thrilling match. I watched pretty much all of it on TV, and I was absolutely drained by the end. England and New Zealand were absolutely evenly matched, and we were frankly a bit fortunate. But I'll take it! The tennis wasn't exactly boring, either, though that sport does rank a bit below cricket in my affections.
In actual My Little Pony news, your host here has actually done some damn writing for once. I really am out of practice, and things aren't flowing in the way they did a few years ago, but if I can just get back to writing at least a little something every day then maybe I can haul myself back up to where I used to be. I won't go into great deal here about exactly what I've been writing, as I'd like to save that for a separate post at some point. You can always wander over to Fimfiction and see for yourself.
On which note, The Danger Within remains "On Hiatus" rather than "Cancelled", and that's a deliberate decision. Every so often I consider that status, and each time I decide that I'd be sad to abandon the story entirely. Similarly, a story I've had in mind since late Season 7 remains on my to-do list – and unlike some other things on that list, I expect that eventually it will actually get done. Finally, you may start to see me writing for the Flashfic 150 prompts again. Obviously as the judge I can't win, but I'd be doing it for fun.
Just three weeks until the (US) hiatus ends and we embark on the last leg of the Friendship is Magic ride we will ever have – at least as far as official TV episodes are concerned. Hardly a startling or original thing to say, but I do hope the show will go out on a high.
Yay, I forgot you liked cricket! Oh, what an incredible game that was! Very harsh on New Zealand, but I'm seeing calls now for the trophy to be "shared" based on some of the bad luck New Zealand had with questionable umpiring. What? (Also nobody seems to be mentioning that Jofra Archer's "wide" in the super over wasn't a wide at all, or maybe it's just my eyes.)
ReplyDeleteAnd yay writing! I'm eager to check out what you're working on :)
I did want the show to "finish" and wrap up the Grogar/succession arc an episode early, and for S9E26 to just be a talky, reflective, relaxed thing in the mould of My Coffee with Niles (the infamous finale of Season 1 of Frasier, in which Frasier sits at a table in a coffee shop talking to his brother and the various people who wander in and out, and nothing at all happens for 22 minutes - this may or may not be the model for nearly all my stories!), but after Rainbow Roadtrip, I feel like that impulse is satisfied now. Which is something I wanted to expand on when talking about how much I appreciated that special and its glacial pacing, too.
I don't know why, but what you just described sounds like what they did with the How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack, in which the big finale and part of the credits music is only the penultimate track on the album, and the final track is "The Vikings Have Their Tea" which is far more chill and relaxed.
DeleteI think I'm right in saying that, if this had happened last time England hosted the World Cup in 1999, the trophy would have been shared. Admittedly England's form 20 years ago was so poor that it was hardly a consideration! As for the Archer wide, to my eyes it was marginal. If the umpire was Erasmus, he probably got it right. If it was Dharmasena, I'm a bit less sure.
DeleteAnd yay writing! I'm eager to check out what you're working on :)
I wouldn't get too excited! I've been looking back at some of the things I wrote when I was properly "in gear" for ponyfic -- stories like It Doesn't Matter Now -- and it's been a while since I could bash out stuff like that remotely smoothly. But I'd love to get back to that level, and I'll give it a shot. :)
I'm not sure whether I should admit this on the internet, but I never got into Frasier at all. It just didn't click. Perhaps one day I'll return to it, but there's so much else to see. As for Pony, though, that's a good point about Rainbow Roadtrip. I don't yet know for sure, but I suspect I might enjoy watching that more a couple of years down the line, precisely because it's a low-stakes way of just spending time with the characters I've spent all these years with.
My favourite 1999 World Cup story is the decision by the ECB to record and market an official England single to show how they were changing with the times and down with the kids and whatnot.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/jOxJrxBE38o
Anyway, to maximise exposure, the decision was made to release the single just as the tournament reached the knockout stages. The thinking was that by then, the country would be gripped by cricket fever and the song would catch on just like Three Lions had crested the wave of football mania.
England were knocked out before the single hit the stores, resulting in initial sales of... zero copies. Heavy discounting in targeted shops eventually helped it limp to a glorious Number 154 for one week. Art imitating life.